 I do something that costs me, so the people who follow me have an easier
time of things, whether it's paying for someone else's coffee, cleaning up a
junk-riddled creek or cutting government spending to make sure a city
doesn't collapse.Which is why Bloomington Alderman Rob Fazzini's plan to borrow $40 million
to pay for pensions — and the borrowing itself — has raised so many
questions.
"It's not (just) borrowing to pay for the groceries," said Cory Eucalitto,
an editor and author at State Budget Solutions. "It's more like borrowing to
pay for the credit card bill you ran up buying the groceries."
Eucalitto said borrowing is not all bad in every situation, but he cautioned
that Bloomington's fiscal problems are not one of those situations.
"Maybe it's a good idea when a state or city is in a good financial position
and has the opportunity for investment in infrastructure," Eucalitto said.
"But when you're faced with increasing pension costs and other forms of
debt, and you think that borrowing more now can solve that problem, you're
really just going to be dealing with higher payments in the future."
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Bloomington is facing a $1.6 million
increase for its police and fire pensions.
Fazzini told the Bloomington Pantagraph,
"The concept isn't, 'Should
we do it?" — It's, 'Should we do it now or pay more money later
because we didn't do it now?'"
Bloomington's City Council is trying to come to terms on a city
budget by the end of the month. That spending plan will either
include millions of dollars in spending cuts or millions of dollars
in new taxes — and perhaps a little of both.
[This
article courtesy of
Illinois Watchdog.]
Contact Benjamin Yount at
Ben@IllinoisWatchdog.org and find him
on Twitter:
@BenYount.
Click here to respond to the editor about this
article.
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